Lord of the Peach Rings
by ficcychick
Summary: Our favorite hobbits accidentally wander into the land of the Labyrinth, stumbling upon a magical gummi peach ring. Hilarious ? adventures ensue. Rated T for some swearing and sexy situations/references. Possibly sliding into crackfic territory.
1. Parte the Firste

A little story I started a few years ago.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or locations, I just like to play with them. :)

* * *

The four young hobbits, Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam, wearily made their way toward the Shire. They were exhausted, aged, and more than a little rank, and Frodo's finger hurt in the worst way. As they traveled farther and farther away from the deathly stillness and monochromatic scenery of Mordor, the land around them began to grow green and lush again. In fact, the rocks and trees sparkled as if someone had been a bit too free with the fairy dust.

"It's nearly time for second breakfast, isn't it?" Pippin asked, his stomach growling as they entered a clearing.

"I would have to agree," Merry said. "Can't we stop to eat?"

"Can't you two think of anything but your own stomachs, what with Mister Frodo hurt and all?" Sam grumbled.

"Mister Frodo's finger doesn't need food where it's at, but my stomach does," Pippin argued, and Sam moved to hit his fellow hobbit.

Frodo held up his wounded hand to stop Sam from denting the frying pan again. "No, Sam, let us rest. I am…weary and we have…far yet to go. We may stop…for a while." He spoke as if he were breathless from pain, or at the very least doing a bad Shatner impression. He was much changed since they had left the Shire, and apart from a sudden penchant for _Star Trek_ and bodysurfing, was very weak and strange.

Merry and Pippin thumbed their noses at Sam and they stopped to have a bite to eat, all of them glad to have more than lembas in their knapsacks. "If I never see another piece of bread again it will be too soon!" Merry exclaimed.

"What I wouldn't give for a pint as we had in The Prancing Pony," Pippin said, licking his lips most lasciviously.

"When you gave us away, you mean?" Sam sneered as he turned the sausages.

"I've never seen you turn away from a drink, Sam Gamgee," Pippin said, looking slyly at Merry. "'Specially when it's served by a certain Rosie of the Shire." The two burst into gales of girlish laughter as Sam's face and ears turned red.

"Go…find some mushrooms," Frodo said from his bed of moss, hoping to deter more physical violence. Still laughing, the two hobbits skipped away from the campsite.

"What a couple of Momma's boys," Merry said when they were out of earshot. "I swear, ever since we dumped that piece of tin into the flames they've been pretty boring."

"I know, Merry. I'm getting sick of Sam being so overprotective. It's not like we're going to have to go on another quest or something. There's usually a one quest limit on these things, 'specially when they're of this magnitude. I mean--" His speech ended when he tripped over something and fell on his face. As he sat up and looked at his hairy hobbit hooves, he spied something. "Oi! What's this?"

Merry plucked it from his toe. "Oh! It's a gummi peach ring. These are delicious!" he said, and began to pop it into his mouth despite the fact it had been snugly around Pippin's toe seconds earlier.

From out of nowhere a voice said "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Merry dropped the ring and Pippin snatched it up as they ran back toward camp.

When they arrived there was a beautiful dark-haired young woman wearing a sparkly white ball gown and cradling Sam in her arms crying, "Oh, Toby, I've found you at last!" Sam, his head between her breasts, couldn't even mumble a reply. Pippin got the feeling he really didn't want to.

"Um, Miss…Lady…that's not Toby. Not even…close," Frodo managed to say. Sam made a frantic gesture for him to shut up, but it was too late. The woman pulled him away from her chest, looking a bit confused. She backed away as if she were afraid, and Sam looked angry.

Pippin, not being one to follow the rules of decorum, held out the peach ring and said "Look what I found!" The hobbits crowded around him, then jumped as the girl screamed. They all looked at her, mouths agape, and suddenly she took on an ethereal glow.

"This ring must be destroyed," she said, her voice filled with an ominous foreboding. The hobbits looked at one another with a 'here-we-go-again' expression on their faces. "It was forged by an evil ruler to hold power over all--"

"That's original," Pippin muttered under his breath, and Merry hid a laugh behind his hand as the girl gave them a dirty look.

"He lost the ring in battle long ago, and since then it has passed from person to person, place to place, in a journey to return to its creator."

"Really lady, we've heard all this before," Merry said.

"Yes, it has quite a familiar 'ring' to it," Pippin put in, and they all began laughing again.

"Stop laughing at me! All my life everyone has laughed at me, called me a whiny brat, a baby, spoiled. It's not fair!"

"Lady, just tell us what we have to do--" Merry began.

"I'm not going on another ruddy ring quest!" Frodo yelled, sounding much like his old self. "Pick someone else, because it's not gonna be me! I'm sick of ponying my ass around all over Hell and beyond giving of myself to save mankind!" His face grew red with anger and spit flew from his mouth as he raged on.

"Last time I almost got a sword in my heart which nearly turned me into Skeletor's twin brother, my ass kicked around by a giant cave troll, led all over by some creep who constantly ate nothing but sushi and I cannot tell you how much _that_ reeked, up into a cave where a giant spider tried to make me an entrée, where after I was trotted around carelessly by the Orc Express!

"When I finally made it to the stupid mountain, I lost a finger to fraggin' Aquaman! The only good thing to come out of this whole stupid mess was…well frankly I don't know. I'm haunted, aged beyond my years, and I'm pretty much never going to get laid, so you can bloody well see why I'm not in such a hurry to do it again!" The other hobbits stood there, mouths agape in shocked silence.

"But the reward is great," the girl said, tossing her long, dark hair and looking at him suggestively.

"I'll take it!" Sam cried.

"No, I will!" Merry and Pippin chorused, and they all jumped for the ring.

"Samwise Gamgee, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and that Fool of a Took!" a voice thundered across the land.

"Dammit!" Pippin said as they turned to see Gandalf the White standing before them. He was wearing Bermuda shorts, a straw hat, and a shirt with brightly colored parrots on it, a margarita fishbowl in his right hand.

"Gandalf the Tan now," he joked, eliciting a chorus of groans.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Pippin asked, still miffed over the 'Fool of a Took' remark.

"I came to save you from certain death," Gandalf said.

"The peach ring?" Sam asked.

"What peach ring?" Gandalf asked, his eyes wide and white in his tanned face. "I just meant don't eat the sausages. It seems Gimli let them sit out for a few days before packing them and he and Legolas are laid up with severe food poisoning. As small as you are I thought the bacteria might kill you. Now what's this about a peach ring? And who is this pretty young thing?" He looked at the girl and waggled his bushy eyebrows.

"Go get a wax job," she said, moving swiftly away from him.

"I found it in the woods," Pippin said.

"Then it is your responsibility," Gandalf said. "You must take it to the Bog of Eternal Stench and drop it in, destroying its peachy goodness and its master in one fell swoop."

"How hard can that be?" Pippin said, laughing. "Just point me in that direction and I'll be back before lunch."

"Do not underestimate the power of the Goblin King," the girl said. "His tights are hypnotic and he will try to mesmerize you with his balls."

"Lady, after seeing Denethor roast his own weeny nothing can scare me."

"Ah, the double entendre," Gandalf said as he threw back the rest of his margarita. "Still the most delightful of all comedy devices." He hooked his arm around the girl's waist and waved to the hobbits. "Have fun, and don't hesitate to call me if you need something. I'm taking this little tart to paradise." The wizard and his consort disappeared in a puff of strange-smelling smoke and strains of reggae music.

"Well gents, what do you say? A quick trip to the Bog of Eternal Stench and then back to the Shire?" Pippin asked, winking.

"Sure, and maybe we'll get a few postcards while we're there," Sam replied, the sarcasm thick.

"Why can't you just eat the damn ring?" Frodo asked. "Surely that's almost the same thing."

"Ah, a poem by Frodo. Be sure to put _that_ in your book," Merry said and picked up his pack. "Bog of Eternal Stench, here we come!" Grumbling, Sam and Frodo picked up their things and followed Marry and Pippin into the woods, their tainted breakfast forgotten.


	2. Parte the Seconde

More mischievous fun with other people's characters. Maybe not as hilarious as advertised, but it has an irreverence I enjoy.

A few hours later, the Bog of Eternal Stench was nowhere in scent, and there was more than one hobbit whose panties were in a twist. "Where the hell are we?" Frodo said, kicking at the ground with his calloused hobbity toes. "Why didn't you ask Gandalf where the Bog was?"

"It's always the same thing with you isn't it, Baggins? _'Why didn't you ask Gandalf? Why did you get the bigger sausage? Why did Aragorn take __**you**__ off into the woods all the time instead of me?'_ Nothing is ever enough for you, is it?" Merry cried.

"Why _did_ Aragorn take you into the woods all the time?" Pippin asked, nibbling on the edge of the ring.

"Free Ranger lessons," Merry said quickly and smacked Pippin on the back of the head. "No eating the peach ring!"

"Oh why does it matter?" Pippin said. "What's going to happen if I take a bite of it? Am I going to start wearing revealing tights? Playing with my balls?"

"You mean more than normal?" Sam muttered, and he and Frodo chuckled.

"You were given a quest by Gandalf," Merry said.

"Yes, and he's off shagging some bimbo and smoking all his old lungs can take. He doesn't care what I do with it."

"Fine, bite it then!" Merry said, his eyebrows pointed in anger.

"Don't dare me, I will!" Pippin cried, getting in Merry's face.

"Peregrine Took, I dare you to take a bite of that peach ring!" Merry yelled, spit flying from his mouth onto Pip's cheeks.

"Fine!" Pippin threw his pack to the ground, opened his mouth to take a bite, and was tackled by a large gobliny creature wearing more jewelry than Galadriel.

"What the hell?" Pippin cried, pushing the creature off him and jumping up. The gobliny thing stood up and brushed himself off, muttering under his breath.

"What kind of orc are you?" Merry asked, laughing behind his hand.

"I'm not an orc, I'm Hoggle, and I'm here to keep you from making what could potentially be the worst mistake of your life." He looked at his wrists, then at the ground. "Now, has anybody seen my faux pearl bracelet?"

* * *

After a few minutes of fruitless searching and some quiet tears as Hoggle mourned the loss of his favorite accessory, he sat the young hobbits down for a little chat over a handful of nuts and berries.

"I assume you know the story of the ring," he said, "so I'm not going to rehash it. In my opinion, the average number of times any normal being can handle a ring legend is about two before they start wanting to choke someone. I'm not too fond of physical violence when it concerns my own well-being, so I'm going to skip over that part. What I want to talk to you about is its creator."

"Well, we already heard that too. Some pervert who likes to mesmerize people with his balls, we got it." Sam said, rolling his eyes.

"Think you know everything, don't you? Well, take it from someone who knows: you don't. So you just sit there and stuff your little chipmunk cheeks and take a listen, because Uncle Hoggle's gonna tell you a little tale.

"Jareth wasn't always a bad person. It took having his heart broken to do that to him, and you can thank that little tart who ran off with your granddad for that. In all his time running the labyrinth, all the years playing games with people, he only ever hurt a few . Well, okay, there were those two or three odd ones that were maimed accidentally by the cleaners, and maybe the Fireys took off a head or two, but other than that, he was as nice as pie. Well, an entrail pie laced with arsenic, but with a pretty decorative crust, scalloped edges and little hearts cut out on the top just like Grandma used to--"

"You were saying?" Frodo said, gritting his teeth as he interrupted the goblin's insane utterings.

Hoggle harrumphed at the hobbit's impertinence, but continued on. "When Sarah refused to be Jareth's queen, the poor sod lost it. He had always been in complete and utter control. He had even controlled me, until she came along and mixed up my feelings and made me think I could be noble, not to mention gave me a few nice pieces for my jewelry collection." Seeing that Frodo was reaching to his side for Sting, he cut the tangent short.

"Jareth went a little nuts, sat in his castle day and night, stopped showering, greasy pizza boxes and half-eaten sandwiches laying around everywhere, dark circles under his eyes. He even stopped playing with his balls, and you apparently know how much he enjoyed that. Finally one day I say to him, 'Look man, you've got to get over this. You're not doing yourself any favors moping around all day, and the labyrinth's going to Hell in a hand basket. Take a little time, maybe go somewhere private to recuperate, get your old self back.' To my surprise he actually agreed without threatening me.

"So he goes away for a few weeks, and when he comes back, he's just like the old Jareth again! Same magic dance, same manic spark. It's as if he never changed! So I ask him, I go 'Jareth, what's your secret?', and he tells me that when he was at the clinic he met the most wonderful man, they got on really well, and the man told him how he could get his power back. All he needed to do was forge an ensorcelled ring, and his subjects would be powerless beneath him, so to speak." Hoggle cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly.

"Sauron? He met Sauron at a clinic?" Sam was incredulous.

"Well, he said the guy called himself Sal, but it could have been an assumed name," Hoggle admitted.

"Why did he make it a gummi peach ring? I mean, metal would have been the more obvious choice," Pippin said, still eyeing it up for a nibble.

"You have to understand, Jareth's medium is peaches. So, he went with what he knew. The first rings were made directly from peaches, but he found that they went mushy and turned to rot in a few days, so he turned to gummies with that peachy flair. Worked, obviously. He filled it with poison so anyone who took it from him would suffer the consequences, and returned to his throne."

"So how did the ring get away from him?" Merry asked.

Hoggle blushed and looked away in shame once more. "Well, you see, I've never been able to resist pretty things. Purses, shoes, lingerie…but jewelry is my main weakness. So one night while he was asleep, I took it. But I knew if I kept it, he would find it on my person and that would be the end of me. So I took it to the woods and hid it where I could go back and admire it from time to time, knowing it was mine."

"Out in the open?" Merry asked.

"I didn't say it was a good hiding place, did I?" Hoggle replied, making a slight jingling noise as he crossed his arms.

"I think you lost it," Sam said, elbowing Frodo. "I think you lost it and are helping us to get it back. We have history with you accessory queens."

"I'll thank you not to call me names!" Hoggle cried, pushing Sam. Sam pushed back, Frodo got involved, and it all escalated until everyone but Pippin was rolling on the ground in a cluster.

"Guys?" he said, clutching his stomach. "Guys?" The others kept fighting, so he threw a rock into the scuffle to break it up, hitting Merry square on the cheek.

"What'd you do that for?" the enraged hobbit asked, making to tackle his friend, but Pippin fell to the ground.

"What did you say was in that peach ring?" he said. "I don't feel so good."

Hoggle stopped instantly in mid-punch. "You didn't!" he cried as Pippin dropped the half-eaten confection to the ground.

"You really _are_ an idiot, Pip," Merry said, shaking his head. "Gandalf was right."

Pippin didn't answer. His eyes were focused on something in the distance, and everyone looked to see a bubble floating their way. It looked suspiciously like a soap bubble, and Sam went to pop it, but Hoggle stopped him.

"It's got to play out now," he said. "Gentlemen, I hope you know how to waltz." They grabbed each other's hands and held on to Pippin, and the bubble picked them up in one fell swoop. Jareth had taken the upper hand.


End file.
